Musings #1: Leaves & Lovers

I am brooding. Well, perhaps. Perhaps this is only one of “those” moments. You know, one of those moments spent lost somewhere beyond the concerns of the day and still not quite fully abandoned in fantasy or forgetfulness.

But maybe you know what I mean. For me at least, it seems that there are times that seem detached. When I can sit back and think of the things happening around me. These are the times when I feel most aware, and when I think most deeply, and – if truth be admitted – when I most enjoy myself. Not being quite as caught up in the excitement of doing I have some perspective by which to reflect on a situation, to savor the experience rather than to be consumed by its passion.

Surely you must have these experiences also?

There are places I associate with each of these moments. Everyone has such places I suppose.

Wait. Don’t tell me just yet. Instead let me guess! ….hmmm. I would have to say that you, …for you, it is in the bath. And not just any bath. You would have an oversized bathtub, filled deeply with piping hot water. Probably one of those old cast iron baths with a white porcelain finish, the high back, and the claw feet. The room would be warm, misty, …dimly lit by late afternoon sunlight coming through a small leaded window near the ceiling. Perhaps a wrap around lace curtain has been hung in place of the shower drapery. Of course it would be silent and would have absolutely nothing that would cause you to think of anything outside those walls. Ah, one last item – I think you would have a candle or two burning. You would soak in the warmth, stare past the idle flicker, dimly note the faint smoky fragrance and begin to recollect some earlier time. And just maybe, it seems clearer to you. That is when your moments begin…

It is cliché, but am I right?

Even if I am not, perhaps this helps you to better understand what I mean.

Anyway, “No.” My place is not the bath. There is a little gathering place near the campus that serves my purposes well enough. It is just a little restaurant that provides coffee, tea, bottled beer and small tables where all sorts of people stop to sit and talk. Perhaps just as important, it also provides a wall of small paned windows that look out over the courtyard and onto the street. I can’t forget those. Without those it could easily be lost among the hundred or so other little coffee shop-cum-watering holes that seem to multiply when we aren’t looking. But this place has been there long enough to have its own history - and the requisite hanger-ons to retell the stories. It is just far enough from the university that somehow it serves as much as neighborhood café as student hangout and a little bit as clubroom for the professionals that work in the area.

The crowd depends on the time and the day. Each time it brings different stories to mind -

- - - - - - - -

Leaves & Lovers

I dropped in to “my place” mid-day on Sunday just to sit and read by the window. I knew it would be quiet and it was. A perfect place to sit and watch the wind blow the fallen leaves around on a cool and damp fall day.

Jenny, one of the servers and a graduate student at the University, saw me as I walked in and gave me that special smile and animated welcome that she saves for, well, absolutely everyone.

This time is was; “Hey, Hi! How are you? Wait! I have something perfect for reading. Grab a seat I’ll be right back!”

“Um, I’m fine.” I stammered, but she was gone.

I took a seat in the corner by the windows. Soon Jenny was back.

“Try this. Gerry decided this would go well with the weather.” Then, grinning broadly, “I think the fall makes him sentimental. Anyway, tell me what you think. I’ll be back later.”

With that, she left me to myself, my book, and what turned out to be a mug of warm cider. I took a sip. It turned out to be warm hard cider with a touch of cinnamon. A bit of a departure from the tea I first had in mind, but I had to admit it was a fine fit with the afternoon. I think this is the type of surprise that make the place a little special to me…Gerry seems to have a way with little things that create a mood.

Whether it was the particular title I had chosen, the cider, or something else it didn’t take long before I decided that the blowing leaves were far more interesting than my book. After 20 minutes or so, I gave up all pretense of reading and turned my attention to watching the leaves swirl in the corner of the courtyard and to pondering the occasional people walking by. There were groups of students hurrying past - animated with a thousand concurrent agendas and the forming and reforming of their pairings. There were young couples on bikes and skates – so serious at their play – and middle-aged couples trying to shepherd their kids down the sidewalk. An elderly couple held hands as they walked. A few lone figures passed by.

My attention drifted to the window glass itself. I noted how easily it separated the inside air from the swirling air only inches away – the same air yet so different. Maybe this was what put me in a detached frame of mind as my attention continued to drift toward the inside of the shop.

I don’t know why, I kept thinking about the couples of different ages. I thought how they seem just as bound by patterns as the blowing leaves. Each leaf moves on its own, but on the same general course as those in front and behind. A few blow out on their own or get caught in the eddies but eventually most get propelled upward in the whirl. On a path toward a common destination. Are couples just the same? I thought of the students. I thought of the young couples. I had been just as naïve and just as enthused when I was of their ages. And what about the old couple? Is it possible yet for me to really understand anything meaningful about them? …but more about that in a different tale. I was brooding about what happens when people from different points of the journey mix. What a complication our ages must be.

My attention was drawn to the handful of voices inside the shop. I wasn’t really listening to the words, just absorbing the meter of the sounds. Standing out from the noise were Jenny’s clear, animated measures. I listened to the sound as she stood talking about nothing with a stylish and good looking middle-aged man at a nearby table.

As I watched and listened I noted how beautiful she was... I mean, sure, one “always” notices one thing or another about someone. And sometimes, somewhere in the back of one’s mind you might take a tally or note a specific thing or two. Certainly I had noticed Jenny before - “that hair”, “that blouse”, whatever – but in an off hand way I reserve for someone well outside my own age range. This time I found myself really looking. Her hair. The blush of her cheeks. The way her skirt clung to her hips.

She really was gorgeous. Perhaps not in the sense of a fashion model – though she was definitely pretty. Deep blue eyes. Straight hair falling around her shoulders. Medium blonde with silver/gray streaks. She had strong, though not at all masculine, features. I felt voyeuristic as I let my eyes examine her the same way so many men do. I admired the particular shape of her breasts. Smaller and beautifully formed. Through her blouse one could see the suggestion of small nipples riding high on her breasts.

Hmmm…the cider was definitely affecting me...but still I stared.

The door opened and a young twenty-something man walked in. Upon hearing the jingle of the bell, Jenny glanced at door. It was only a moment, but her uncertainty, her vulnerability, showed in her unconscious quick self examination – wetting her lips, quickly pushing the hair from her face and almost imperceptibly straightening her posture and lifting her chest.

The moment passed. Just as quickly it was forgotten and she was continuing her jest with the man at the table.

She laughed.

Her lips opened in a deep laugh that quickly dissolved into a girlish self-conscious giggle. In that moment, her teeth flashed. Her head tipped slightly backward baring the smooth white skin of her neck. I watched as the blood rose to briefly flush her skin and fill her lips. The color rose and passed upward accenting and throwing into relief the smooth muscles of her neck; the sensual curves and recesses of her throat; the gentle line of her jaw. The blush passed upward to reside in her cheeks then quickly disappeared again.

I could read the shift in her attitude. She was no longer at work. She was talking to a man that interested her at some level – although I bet this never occurred to her. It was just innocent flirting. Flirting that I could tell would keep him awake tonight thinking about her.

And I realized, that if I let it, her flirting would also keep me awake tonight. I began thinking about her and the potential of the two of them being together tonight while I lay awake in my own bed. Three leaves caught in a momentary eddy, I thought.

Now, please don’t think…I know you are going to think something perverse, but really it isn’t like that. I was noticing all these things, and the thoughts were going all around in my head, but in a sort of strange detached way.

Well, despite what I have been saying, I was thinking just as much about the man to whom she was speaking. He was clearly enthralled with her - if not with the conversation. Could it have been just the conversation? Somehow I thought not, his eyes seemed to be appreciating far more than just her gestures.

I started to daydream the beginnings of the thoughts that would obsess me later that night. I imagined how it would be for them as they drew together. An everyday older man and an everyday younger woman – not so strange really, I told myself.

Jenny wasn’t the type to play the shy innocent. I knew that. I figured that she knew what she wanted and how her part would go.

What did he want? O.k., of course I know what he thought he wanted. I could see those things myself. As every woman says; ‘guys can be so shallow’. But what if the attraction was more than that? He really did look like a pretty decent guy. What more might he be looking for? What could he hope for? What might he be fantasizing at that very moment? Hmmmm….whatever it was, I still thought he might get some surprises.

I felt myself begin to sink into that familiar, intimate awareness of my physical self …

I let myself float and tried to imagine myself in each of their places. Yes, it was going to be a good night after all:

Him:

“I followed her up the stairs to her apartment.

She stepped quickly, leading the way. I couldn’t help myself but to stare at her long legs and firm ass as she climbed the stairs above me. She wore those tight low cut jeans, “hip-huggers” we used to call them.

“Good Lord, did they really used to look that good?” I wondered. I didn’t really care.

The jeans accentuated the curve of her lower back and provided a tantalizing glimpse of the gentle flare of her hips. As she climbed I was mesmerized by the dimples at the base of her spine – moving with the sway of her hips and belying the strength of the muscles anchored just below the surface.

She inserted the key in the lock, but instead of turning it, she spun herself around. She put her arms around my neck and pulled herself into me, enveloping my mouth with her own.

I barely had time to register the sensation or the intensity of the kiss and the warmth of her lips.

“Mmmm…how about that?” She asked. “Are you ready?”

She giggled as she pulled away.

Luckily, I didn’t have to frame a coherent answer. She quickly turned back around, opened the door and was across the threshold.

I should have noticed the symbolism. I had presumed that I was the experienced one and that I would guide our lovemaking. When I was her age, the girls were also young, we were exploring our intimacy and learning our limits. We were both always fumbling.

Then again, perhaps I should have noticed absolutely nothing so abstract. Here was a woman. She in her domain and in possession of all the advantages that mattered for anything at that moment: beauty; energy; intent – and sufficient innocence to become easily lost in passion. It occurred to me that the last item is the first to go.

I followed across the threshold. “What now?” I thought.

The lights were still off. Even as we stood in the open doorway, I again felt her arms around my neck and her body pulled against mine. I knew that my desire was just as strong. In that moment, with that realization, our roles reversed and it was I that held her to me. I felt her yield. I felt strong and I felt young again.

I broke our kiss and buried my face in her hair. I breathed deeply savoring the scent of her body and the faintest remnants of the perfume she put on hours earlier. Her hair cascaded around my face. The sensation blocking out everything else.

My lips touched her neck. I kissed the recess behind her jaw and then moved forward to nibble at the smooth skin behind her ear. I felt her body relax. She yielded to me and she laid her head to the side, resting now on my shoulder, giving me full access to her neck and cheek. I gently kissed her. Finally I was breaking away and opened my eyes to look directly into hers. I saw there a sparkle and appreciation, and also amusement.

“Ah, you are ready! Come.” She said.

She took my hand and pulled me to the living room.

Jolted out of my reverie, I recognized that we had assumed our original roles. She was leading again. Her attention was focused on the here and now and on our physical intimacy – not the musings of an old man.

“Here.” She said simply.

Again we kissed. Deeply this time. Her lips devoured, pressing and moving aggressively. She playfully bit my lower lip. It was in fun, but still hard enough to warn me that this wasn’t supposed to be a “one girl show.” I grabbed her to me and returned the full energy of her kiss. The passion was flowing from her and I fed upon it and echoed it back.

We said nothing. Just hard passionate kissing.

I stroked her back, then stopped to rest my hands on her hips. I let them roam around her sides to rest again on her lower back, feeling the rise of her buttocks and hips. I felt the strength of her body in her slight lithe movement as she shifted her weight from one leg to the other; in the slight change in pitch of her pelvis.

Once again she began setting the pace, hurrying our progress. Yet I sensed brief moments of uncertainty when it seemed she wanted to slow down, in conflict over what she really wanted. Her hands would propel us forward, reaching for the next objective. But her body would linger seeming to savor the kiss or the touch just a moment longer.

“Take your time.” I said breathlessly between kisses.

Her kisses became slower and more sensuous.

Jenny worked her hand between us and began unbuttoning my shirt. She opened the top half of my shirt and pushed it down over my shoulders, restricting the movement of my upper arms. Next she leaned forward and lightly kissed along my collarbone.

“There we go. That’s better.” She said, “Let me touch you.”

I whispered, “I can’t reach you. I want…”

She lifted her head and kissed me to quiet me. Our eyes met. All I saw now was a sparkle of excitement. She quickly returned to stroking and kissing my chest. Oh, such a feeling! Her tongue traced the line of my collarbone where her lips had just been. She lingered making little circles in the recess at the base of my throat. Her hands roamed across my chest and passed slowly down, stopping with her fingers over my nipples. She gently stroked with her fingertips.

Using what freedom I had in my arms, I unbuttoned the lower half of her shirt and slipped my hands inside. As she continued to kiss me I felt my penis begin to stir. I reached to release the button on her jeans and I eased the zipper down. I continued my exploration, running my hand over her stomach muscles, taunt just below the skin. I roamed to that flat place just below the curve of her stomach and above her patch of hair. With the tips of my fingers I could just barely sense the rise of her mound.

“See? You can reach.” She spoke into my shoulder.

Although she offered no resistance, I backed off. Did I sense disappointment? I slid my hands as far as I could up her back and pulled her to me.

I felt her stomach press against my groin. She rocked her pelvis against me. I didn’t need this kind of encouragement. I was already so hard it was painful.

“Oh, hold on a moment. I am kind of stuck.” I stammered.

She looked up. “Poor Baby, I can fix that.”

She released me from the remainder of my shirt and unbuttoned my jeans. My hands were free to roam! I lost no time in removing her shirt. She wore no bra and I pulled her to me, pressing our bodies together. Her breasts were firm and pressed hard against me. I felt their heat on my chest and her hard nipples against my skin. Her chest rose and fell in full breaths against mine. As it did, I felt her breasts pull against my chest and her nipples skip across my skin.

I kissed her deeply. My hands roamed over her back. I reveled in the contact as we pressed our upper bodies together and slid them over each other to heighten the sensation. I buried my face in her hair.

I could have stayed like that for ages.

“God! You are so cute. Lets go.” Said Jenny, pulling away.

“What?”

“Lets go. I am dying.” She explained as she pushed her jeans and panties down her legs. “Come on, right here is fine.”

…

Good Heavens! How long had I been daydreaming? I was actually getting myself worked up over this little fantasy. After a quick look around the restaurant I shifted my position to get comfortable. For a moment I struggled with my imagined scenario. Something didn’t feel quite right. I felt Jenny would probably lead the activity from here and I began to imagine I was she -

“Lets go. I am dying. Come on, right here is fine.”

I mean ‘o.k.’ so the couch isn’t the most romantic, but come on, we had already bypassed the candlelight and roses steps. And, there was no question that he was ready. I could barely get his jeans undone … damnable button flies just don’t work “under pressure.” You would think guys would figure that out. Besides I had been working myself into a frenzy during the last three hours as I debated bringing him back here. Standing there cuddling was kind of sweet of him, but I was looking for something more physical.

I loved the look in his eyes as he took in my body. An unusual desire arose in me.

“Stay still. Let me start.”

I sunk down in front of him. I pushed his pants down as I knelt.

I am usually fairly ambivalent about going down on a guy. I don’t really mind, but it usually doesn’t do a lot for me. Usually the main turn on is the reaction from the guy. Tonight was different – I guess that I wasn’t really looking for any sort of connection – just sex and he seemed nice and looked good. Maybe that was it, I thought. Either way, tonight I wanted this.

I didn’t touch him with my hands. I grabbed his hips then leaned forward to trace the underside of his cock with the tip of my tongue. When I reached the end I slowly moved over the head and slipped him into my mouth. I held his hips steady and slowly worked my head, feeling him moving in and out. This is what I wanted. Just to feel the rawness of the act. I blocked out everything but the awareness of this thing I was doing and the feeling of my hardened nipples and the growing pressure between my legs.

I began rocking my whole body and clenching my thighs together, concentrating the pressure on my groin. I was aware only of the motion between my legs and the penis in my mouth.

We continued. I felt the warmth begin to spread and knew that I could cum if I continued this long enough.